Weekend rain could halt grain harvest

Grain harvesting across South Australia, Victoria and southern New South Wales is expected to be disrupted by weekend rain.

The weather bureau is predicting falls across the three states and farmers were desperately trying to harvest as much grain as possible before rain arrived.

Victorian Mallee farmhand and truck driver "Big Ted" said everyone was working hard.

"It's unfortunate that it's had to come so early, just after we had started harvesting," he said.

The weather bureau said the rain was building in South Australia on Friday and was expected across most of south-eastern Australia and western New South Wales over the weekend.

Scott Williams is a senior forecaster at the weather bureau.

"There's a lot of moisture involved. Victoria should see falls of 50 millimetres-plus," he said.

The rain will halt harvesting and there is a fear of crop damage.

Mr Williams said the rain would put more water into dams which were already brimming in many areas.

"Pretty substantial rain, [but] there'll be very few areas that will miss out altogether," he said.

While the rain will be cursed by many farmers, Mr Williams said there was hope for early in the week ahead.

"I would think we'll get a few drying, milder days this next week," he said.

With harvest expected to get into full swing in the South Australian Mallee in a fortnight, farmers are hoping to avoid the problems they experienced last year with shot grain.

Richard Saunders, from Rural Solutions SA, said it should not be a problem if the conditions work in their favour.

"We can get the rain and I've seen it before where we've had an inch of rain and we've had really good drying conditions immediately afterwards," he said.

"Guys have been harvesting virtually or one or two days later. But so much hangs on how much rain we get. I'm hoping the bureau have got this wrong."

Just a few weeks of warm, dry weather could set up the far west of New South Wales for its highest fire risk in decades.

Gordon Hill, acting team manager for the Far West Rural Fire Service, said the last big fire season was in the 1980s.

"There's been some odd areas where we've had fires in more recent times, but we haven't had the fuel on the ground to the extent that we've got this season and maybe the same time next year, should we get a continuation of wetter weather," he said.